[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Buddhist Literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha) › [Taishō Tripiṭaka (Chinese Buddhist canon)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho) › [續高僧傳](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2060) › 15.29 # 續高僧傳 15.29 續高僧傳 15.29 - **Language:** Classical Chinese ### [15.29](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2060.15.29) 釋慧休。姓樂氏。瀛州人也。世居海濱。以蠶漁為業。而生知離惡深惟罪報。常思出濟無緣拔足。或累歎通宵晨或忘餐。近逾信宿。雖憤氣填胸。無免斯厄。十六遇相州沙門巡里行化談三世之循擾述八苦之交侵。雅會夙懷。背世情決乃違親背俗。投勗律師而出家焉。勗導以義方禮逾天屬。又聞靈裕法師震名西壤。行解所歸。現居鄴下。命休從學。休天機秀舉惟道居心。乃背負華嚴遠遊京鄴。一聞裕講鎣動身心不略昏明幽求體性。而章句無昧至理未融。展轉陶埏五十餘遍研諷文理轉加昏漠。試以所解遍問諸師。皆慮涉重關返啟其致。乃悟曰。斯固上聖之至理也。豈下凡而抑度哉。且搏聽眾師。沐心法海耳。乃往渤海從明彥法師聽成實論。先出章抄品藻異同。慧滿冲情解律法友。以彥公化世受染餘流。從志念法師受學小論。加雜婆沙各聞數遍。窮其本支曉其固執。解既清逈行寔貞嚴。念曰。余講小乘歲序多矣。今乃值子諒不虛延。休即著雜心玄章抄疏。各區別部類條貫攸歸。文教纔出初尋重敬。頻當元宰講授相續。幽致既舉慧燭天懸。故使馳名冀都擊響河渭。抱帙橫經肩排日謁。結疑懷籤踵接登堂。皆總為書紳永開冥府。故於立破諸教。探隱洞明。雖學冠空宗。而梗情塵境。欲通惟識之旨。取悟無方。會裕師入關因便預從。遇曇遷禪師及尼論師等講揚攝論。每舉一會餘駕停輪。詞吐既新。領拔彌悉周涉三遍即造疏章。神會幽陳廣疏聽視。自大小諸藏並統關鍵。惟有律部未遑精閱。昔以戒禁隨事可用緣求。案讀即了未勞師授。曾披一卷持犯茫然。方悔先議更弘神府。乃負律提瓶。從洪律師聽採四分。一經講肆三十餘遍。日漸其致終未極言。顧諸學徒曰。余聽涉多矣。至於經論一遍入神。今遊律部逾增逾闇。豈非理可虛求事難通會乎。而敬慎三業懍課六時。纖塵或阻即申懺洗。目見大小講匠知名者多。奉法自修實罕聯類。嘗聽礪公講律。礪曰。法師大德。暮年如何猶勤律部。休曰。余憶出家之始。從虎口中來。即奉投戒法。豈以老朽而可斯須離耶。恨吾不得常聞耳。其清慎之高。率此例也。又屢經寇蕩荒荐相仍。寺眾僧厨亟經宿觸。故從隋末終至唐初。四度翻穢獲資淨供。致使四方嘉會。休有功焉。暨武德年內。劉闥賊興。魏相諸州並遭殘戮。忽一日警急。官民小大棄城逃隱。休在雲門聞有斯事。乃率學士二十餘人。東赴相州了無人物。便牢城自固。四遠道俗承休城內方來歸附。當斯時也人各藏身。而休挺節存國守城引眾。可謂亂世知人者矣。其年不久。天策陳兵。遠臨賊境。軍實無委。並出當機。休既處僧端預明利害集眾告曰。官軍靜亂須有逢迎。僧食眾物義當先送。再和大眾並無從者。休懼被後罸必可乘權。獨詣軍門具陳來意。于時曹公徐世勣。引勞賞悅。仍令部從隨休至寺。任付糧粒。及平殄後。曹公為奏具述休功。登即下勅入賊。諸州見有僧尼。止留三十。相州一境特宜依定以事驗人。休量難准。又荒亂之後律法不行。並用銅盂身御俗服同諸流俗。休恐法滅於事。躬自經營立樣造坏。依法施熏遂成好𭽽。遍送受持。今大行用並是休功緝遺緒也。又僧庫火起。時當中夜。忽有人告。走往觀之。賴始發焰。救而獲免。退問告由了無知者。良以道通幽顯。屢動禎祥。貞觀九年。頻勅徵召令入京師。並固辭以疾無預榮問。至今十九年中。春秋九十有八。見住慈潤爽健如前。四眾懷蒲柳之慕猶執卷諮謀。乃力倦而告曰。吾學功多矣。每有經律。雖聽二三十遍文旨乃鏡。猶恨少功。欲兼異部。未遑多涉耳。今之後學則不同之。薄知文句宗致眇然。即預師範更無通觀。所以終夜長慨有耿于懷。致有窮括教源莫知由序。此法滅在人矣。今暮年開道意在成器。斯猶砥礪合其刃耳。安能鑪錘其樸耶。所以引化席端直陳綱要。而奉禁守道抑在天然。挫拉形心逾衰逾篤。衣服率然趣便蓋體。襆懸壁上尺絹不居。所得外利即迴講眾。補綻衣服不勞人助。見着麻鞋經今三十餘年。雖有斷壞綴而蹈涉。暫有泥雨徒跣而行。有問其故。答云。泥軟易履。不損信施耳。又寒不加火熱不依涼。瓶水若凍裹之草束。受具已來𭽽無他洗。入夏已去不噉菜蔬。旋遶往還執帚先掃。存護物命寧有過之。凡斯眾行前後一揆。余以親展徽音。奉茲景行。猶恨標其大抵。事略文繁以為輕約耳。弟子曇元。高潔僧也。經論及律並曾披導。偏重清行不妄衣食。寺雖結淨猶懷塵點。常乞食自資。今託靜林慮寶山。志道辭世。門人靈範。學通休涉慧悟少之。勅召弘福。時揚攝論。今居宗樹業。振名京邑。又休以年學高遠。今上重之。因事遼左親幸其室。敘故陳道彌會帝心。故又續其績。 > Śramaṇa Huixiu, whose secular surname was Yue, was a native of Yingzhou. His family had resided by the seacoast for generations, making sericulture and fishing their livelihood. Yet by nature he was aware of renouncing evil and deeply contemplated karmic retribution. He constantly thought of leaving \[the household\] to attain deliverance, but had no means to extricate his feet. Sometimes he sighed repeatedly through the whole night, and in the morning he forgot to eat, occasionally for more than two consecutive days. Though indignation filled his chest, he could not escape this plight. At the age of sixteen, he encountered a śramaṇa from Xiangzhou who was making his rounds through the neighborhoods to convert people, discoursing on the cyclical turmoil of the three periods of time and describing the mutually invading eight sufferings. This met gracefully with his long-held aspirations, and his resolve to turn his back on worldly affairs was decided; he then went against his parents and renounced worldly life, casting himself before Vinaya Master Xu to become a monk. Xu guided him with proper principles, and their ritual decorum surpassed \[that between\] biological kin. Furthermore, having heard that Dharma Master Lingyu made his fame resound through the western lands, being the refuge of both practice and understanding, and was then residing in Ye, Xu ordered Xiu to follow and study under him. Xiu's natural capacity was prominent and extraordinary, and he kept his mind solely on the Way; he then carried the Avataṃsaka \[Sūtra\] on his back and traveled far to the capital Ye. As soon as he heard Yu's lectures, his body and mind were stirred and polished; without neglecting day or night, he profoundly investigated the essential nature. Yet while the chapters and sentences were not obscure, the supreme truth had not yet blended \[in his understanding\]. Transformed and molded repeatedly for more than fifty times, as he scrutinized and recited the texts and doctrines, he became ever more bewildered. He tried to question various masters universally based on what he had understood; all their thoughts were entangled in heavy barriers, but he in turn illuminated their essential tenets. He then had an awakening and said, 'This is indeed the supreme truth of the superior sages! How could an ordinary mortal arbitrarily guess it? For now, I shall simply listen widely to the various masters and bathe my mind in the ocean of the Dharma.' Thereupon he went to Bohai to listen to the Chengshi lun under Dharma Master Mingyan. He first produced chapter digests, discriminating and evaluating similarities and differences; his wisdom was replete and his temperament vacant, and he was an understanding friend in the Vinaya and the Dharma. Because Master Yan transformed the world and received the taint of remaining trends, \[Huixiu\] studied the Lesser \[Vehicle\] treatises under Dharma Master Zhinian, moreover listening to the Za \[Apitan xin lun\] and the Vibhāṣā several times each. He exhausted their branches and roots and understood their rigid tenets. His understanding was already clear and lofty, and his practice was truly chaste and strict. Nian said, 'Many years have passed while I lectured on the Hīnayāna. Only now have I encountered you; truly my life has not been prolonged in vain.' Xiu then composed mysterious chapters, digests, and commentaries on the Za xin \[lun\], distinguishing each category and section, laying out the branches and guiding their origins. As soon as his textual teachings appeared, they were immediately looked upon with double reverence. Frequently facing the chief minister, his lecturing and instruction continued without break. Once the profound principles were expounded, his candle of wisdom hung high in the sky, thus causing his fame to spread through the capital of Ji and echo across the Yellow River and the Wei River. Carrying book satchels and holding horizontal scrolls across their chests, people rubbed shoulders to visit him daily; harboring doubts and holding slips of paper, they mounted his hall one after another. All of them recorded his words upon their sashes, eternally opening the dark chambers \[of their minds\]. Therefore, regarding the establishment and refutation of the various teachings, he probed the hidden and penetrated the clear. Although his learning was preeminent in the Emptiness school, his sentiments were obstructed by the defiled objective realms; wishing to penetrate the tenets of Consciousness-only, he had no direction from which to attain awakening. Meeting Master Yu as he entered the Pass, he took the opportunity to accompany him in advance. He encountered Dhyāna Master Tanqian, Treatise Master Ni, and others lecturing on and expounding the She \[dacheng\] lun. Whenever a gathering was held, the carriages of others stopped rolling. Their phrasing was novel, and his comprehension and extraction were all the more thorough; going through it three times, he immediately composed commentaries and chapters. His spirit met with the profound expositions, broadly opening his hearing and vision. From the large and small scriptural baskets, he grasped all the key pivots; only the Vinaya section he had not yet had the leisure to peruse thoroughly. Formerly, he had thought that the moral prohibitions could be applied as needed according to circumstance, and upon consulting and reading them one would immediately understand, without troubling a master's instruction. But once, turning open a single scroll, he was bewildered by what constituted upholding and violating; only then did he regret his former view and set out to broadly expand the treasury of the spirit. Thereupon, shouldering the Vinaya and carrying his water bottle, he went to Vinaya Master Hong to listen to and gather the Four-Part \[Vinaya\]. Having once frequented the lecture hall more than thirty times, he gradually deepened its principles day by day, yet ultimately never reached the end of its words. Looking at the students, he said, 'I have listened to and traversed much; as for the sūtras and treatises, they entered my spirit upon a single pass. Now that I wander through the Vinaya section, I become ever more darkened. Is it not that truth can be sought abstractly, but practical matters are difficult to unify and penetrate?' Yet he was reverent and cautious in the three actions, and strictly fulfilled his tasks during the six periods of the day; if a single speck of dust caused an obstruction, he immediately expressed repentance and washed it away. With his own eyes he saw many renowned masters of both the Greater and Lesser \[Vehicles\] lecturing, yet those who upheld the Dharma to cultivate themselves were truly rare to match him. He once listened to Master Li lecture on the Vinaya. Li said, 'Dharma Master and Bhadanta, why do you still apply yourself so diligently to the Vinaya section in your declining years?' Xiu said, 'I remember the beginning of my renunciation of the household, coming forth from the tiger's mouth, I directly took refuge in the precepts and Dharma. How could I depart from them even for a moment because of old age and decrepitude? I only regret that I cannot always hear them.' The height of his purity and prudence was generally of this sort. Furthermore, having repeatedly passed through bandit invasions, with famine and plagues succeeding one another, the monastery community and the sangha's kitchen had frequently incurred contact with overnight leftovers; therefore, from the end of the Sui down to the beginning of the Tang, he overturned the impurities four times and obtained support for pure offerings, bringing about auspicious gatherings from all four quarters; Xiu was instrumental in this. When in the Wude era, the rebel Liu Heita arose, Wei, Xiang, and other prefectures all suffered slaughter and destruction. Suddenly one day an alarm was raised; officials and commoners, great and small, abandoned the city and fled into hiding. Xiu, being at Yunmen, heard of this matter, and thereupon led more than twenty scholars east toward Xiangzhou; there was not a single person left. He then fortified the city walls to secure it; hearing that Xiu was inside the city, the religious and lay from far and near only then came to place their trust in him. At this time, everyone was hiding themselves, yet Xiu held upright his integrity to preserve the state, defending the city and gathering the multitude; he may indeed be called one who recognized men in times of disorder. Soon in that year, the Tiance \[Army\] arrayed its troops and arrived from afar at the rebel border. The army lacked provisions, and all relied on the immediate circumstance. Being at the head of the sangha, Xiu foresaw the advantages and disadvantages; he assembled the multitude and told them, 'The imperial army is pacifying the rebellion and must be welcomed; the sangha's provisions and communal property ought rightfully to be sent first.' Having consulted the assembly twice, none complied. Fearing later punishment, and knowing that one must act expediently, Xiu went alone to the military gate and fully stated his intention in coming. At that time Duke of Cao Xu Shiji, consoling him with appreciation, was delighted; he then ordered his attendants to follow Xiu to the monastery to receive the grains as they wished. When the pacification was completed, Duke of Cao presented a memorial fully relating Xiu's merit. An imperial edict was immediately issued: in the various prefectures that had fallen to the rebels, the current monks and nuns were only to be retained up to thirty; in Xiangzhou territory, it was especially appropriate to establish the quota based on the proof of conduct. Xiu's capacity was hard to measure. Furthermore, after the chaos and famine, the Vinaya rules were not practiced; they all used bronze bowls and wore secular clothing, no different from commoners. Xiu feared that the Dharma would perish in external matters, so he personally managed the work, establishing models and shaping clay molds; applying smoke according to the Dharma, he at last produced fine bowls. He sent them everywhere for people to receive and uphold; their widespread use today is all the result of Xiu's merit in continuing the abandoned thread. Furthermore, a fire broke out in the sangha storehouse in the middle of the night. Suddenly someone gave an alarm; running to look, fortunately the flames were just starting, and through rescue it was saved. When he returned and asked about the source of the report, no one knew of it. Truly it was because his Way penetrated the dark and manifest realms that it repeatedly stirred auspicious portents. In the ninth year of Zhenguan, imperial summons were repeatedly issued ordering him to enter the capital, but he firmly declined on account of illness and did not participate in glorious inquiries. Down to this nineteenth year, his springs and autumns are ninety-eight; he currently resides at Cirun, hearty and healthy as before. The fourfold assembly, harboring the longing of willows and rushes, still hold scrolls to consult him; yet weary in strength, he said, 'My learning was accomplished through much effort. Whenever there were sūtras or Vinayas, though I heard them twenty or thirty times before the textual principles became like a mirror, I still regretted my lack of effort; wanting to cover different sects as well, I had not yet had the leisure to traverse widely. The later students of today are not like this: knowing a slight amount of phrases and sentences while the principal tenets remain obscure, they immediately assume the role of model teachers without any comprehensive view. Therefore throughout the night I sigh deeply with anxiety in my heart, resulting in those who exhaust the source of the teaching without knowing its proper sequence. This is the demise of the Dharma caused by humans! In my declining years, my intention in opening the Way is to mold them into vessels; this is merely like sharpening and joining the blade, how could I forge and smelt the raw ore? Therefore, guiding the transformation from the front of the mat, I directly set forth the essential guidelines; yet upholding the prohibitions and preserving the Way depends inherently on nature.' He subdued his body and mind, becoming ever more earnest as he grew older. His clothing was unadorned, taken merely for convenience to cover the body. A bundle hung on the wall without holding even a foot of silk. The external gains he received were immediately turned over to the lecturing assembly. He mended his clothes without troubling others for help. The hemp shoes he currently wears have been used for more than thirty years; although torn and broken, he stitches them to walk, and whenever there is mud or rain he walks barefoot. When someone asked the reason, he replied, 'The soft mud is easy to tread on, and does not damage the offerings of the faithful.' Furthermore, he did not add fire in the cold, nor seek shade in the heat. If the water in his bottle froze, he wrapped it with bundles of grass. Since receiving full ordination, he never had his bowl washed by another. After entering summer, he did not eat vegetables. When circumambulating back and forth, he held a broom to sweep first; in preserving and protecting living creatures, could anyone surpass him? All these varied practices were uniform from beginning to end. Because I personally unfolded his fine reputation and revered these magnificent deeds, I still regret outlining merely the general points, abbreviating affairs while the text was voluminous, considering it slight and concise. His disciple Tanyuan was a lofty and pure monk; he had unfolded and guided in the sūtras, treatises, and Vinaya alike, placing special emphasis on pure conduct, not taking clothing and food improperly. Although the monastery was purified, he still harbored thoughts of specks of dust, constantly sustaining himself by begging for food. At present, he entrusts his seclusion to Baoshan in Linlü, aiming at the Way and leaving the world. His disciple Lingfan had learning that encompassed what Xiu had traversed, but in wisdom and awakening fell short of him. By imperial decree he was summoned to Hongfu, where he occasionally expounded the She \[dacheng\] lun; currently he presides over the lineage and establishes his career, making his name resound in the capital. Furthermore, because Xiu's age and learning were lofty and profound, the current Emperor respected him; on account of the expedition to Liaozuo, His Majesty personally visited his chamber. Recounting past events and discoursing on the Way, it met closely with the Emperor's heart; therefore I have further continued the account of his deeds. > — English (machine translation) (machine translation) - [Previous: 15.28](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2060.15.28) - [Next: 15.30](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2060.15.30) - [Up: 15](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2060.15) ## Translations (1) - [English (machine translation)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2060~en-mt.15.29) — English, machine translation --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2060.15.29](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2060.15.29) · Pramāṇa